1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a remote controlling apparatus and a remote controlling method applied for remotely controlling an electronic device for example according to a wireless communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a home-use device, for example, a television receiver, is remotely controlled using a wireless communication of a 2.4 GHz band ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical use), the device is less affected by obstructions and the communication distance becomes longer than using an infrared system. In such a remote controlling system, when a television receiver is newly bought and installed, it is necessary to associate a remote controlling device (hereinafter referred to as a remote commander) with the television receiver in a relationship of 1:1 (this operation is referred to as pairing) to allow the remote commander to control the television receiver. In particular, when a remote controlling system has had another device under control (composed of a communication section and an electronic device), it is necessary for the user to set his or her desired electronic device for a control object.
As a method of searching for a communicable device based on the Bluetooth, HomeRF, or the like, a master station transmits a slave station detection message as a broadcast message to a slave station. When a slave station has received the slave station detection message, the slave station transmits a response message to the master station. By receiving the response message, the master station can search for a communicable device. In this case, since the master station transmits the slave station detection message to all devices in the search range, the master station inevitably receives response messages from non-objective devices. To solve such a problem, a technique of which a slave station is detected by changing the communication range of the slave station detection message has been disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-144781 (hereinafter referred to as Patent Document 1).